Chapter Three

I dream in riddles.

When I was a kid, it was always so simple. I dreamed of my daddy coming home, my mother sobering up. I thought every kid had those dreams.

See, when you're a kid, things are simple. You don't think too much. You don't feel outnumbered by your thoughts, like they're coming from someone else. People call it ignorance. But really, kids are so much smarter than adults. They see things as they are. They think life is just life, and it's always been the way it is. Ignorance is bliss.

When I grew up a bit, my preteens, when I realized the world ran on appearances. That's when mommy got wasted and drowned in vomit. That's when daddy took me back regardless of what he thought of me, just to stay out of court. To keep his spotless reputation.

My dreams started changing around that time, when I moved to LA. That was when I decided I wanted to make my life worth something. That I wanted people to see me as more than just another idiot coasting through life. I dreamed of being on the TV that raised me. Pretending to be someone else.

It's easy for me, to act. To make believe. To lie. They're all the same. It helps me, sure. I got into Hollywood Arts with the threat of my skill in it. I told my precious father if he didn't pay the tuition with his overload of money, I would say he molested me. I showed him how good I was, I told him how I had it all planned, how he could do nothing about it 'cause I'm an innocent little girl and he's a rich old bastard who thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants, in the world's eyes. In the jury's eyes.

I got my way then – I acted like I wasn't terrified of what he might do to me, how he might react to my proposition. Not to sound vain, but I'm an amazing actress. I get a ton of practice. I'm acting every second of my life. But people don't care how good an actress I am – they're only interested in what can be put on paper. You can be the best actress the world's ever seen, you'll get nowhere without experience.

So Hollywood Arts was a good start – going to an acting school. People who look at that will get interested. It doesn't matter how terrible you are. They can work with that.

When I got in the school, that's when I realized all that mattered to me was appearance. That I wanted people to see me as someone important, someone to either look up to or to be scared of. I was no different from my goddamn father, the bane of my existence.

So I started wearing all black all the time, dying my hair, getting colored streaks, piercings, illegal tattoos. I called people out, being bitchy, adding only biting comments to conversations. I became someone no one would like, and, regardless, everyone was forced to recognize my talent.

Now, my dreams make no sense. It's the same one, every time I close my eyes, even when my eyes are open it plays out in my head. It starts out in a forest. Just a regular forest, nothing special about it. I'm standing there, young, the age I was when my mother was still alive. And I have a watch. I look at it, it spins like a wheel on a car.

My arm around the watch, it's growing, it's aging. I'm aging. It grows until it turns to the size hand I'm used to looking at when I hold a microphone, hit something, touch myself. And then it stops – the time, the aging arm. And I look at my watch, and it morphs into one of those digital clocks and it say's the time's 6:65, which doesn't make sense. That time doesn't exist.

Then I'm looking up, into a mirror that appeared in front of me. I see myself. My reflection. The forest behind me. The rain stops. I didn't realize it was raining, not until it stopped. I was too preoccupied, watching the time pass. What a waste of it.

Then I look back down, down at my watch. It's strained. It's been made for a child's arm, not a teenager's. I reach out with my other hand, I press my fingertips to the glass. The band snaps the second I touch it, it falls, the glass covering the clock shatters and reaches out to tear scratches in my legs. The time flicks to 6:66.

I look back up then, into the mirror. I'm thinning. My muscles, my definition, it's just degrading right in front of my eyes. I'm dying, and I just watch myself, doing nothing. The forest behind me is thinning out, trees withering down or falling over under their own weight. Bushes die. The sun is always setting somewhere.

And all the while, I'm watching myself turn to a corpse. My skin and eyes have lost color. I sink to my knees.

The forest is completely dead soon, and I'm lying on my side, with an awkward view into the mirror, seeing myself start to decompose. And there are no trees obscuring my vision anymore. I can see my fortress, off on the horizon. I can see my gates, wide open. A thousand people flooding in, a thousand people who I don't want in there.

That's why I stopped sleeping. I didn't want to go there, to see that. That's why I'm here, on my coffin at two in the morning, thinking about what it all means. Thinking too much. If I was a kid, I wouldn't dwell on it. I'm not a kid anymore.

The tears stop. I didn't realize I was crying, not until I stopped. I was too preoccupied, watching my life pass.

What a waste of it.

A/N - I'm truthfully running out of things to say now. If you think about that dream as much as I want you to, you will probably be having it tonight. Sucks for you. Just try not to read too much into it, you might hurt yourself.